-secure to individual clients, ideally without them having to 'join' the service-open to download (eg show reel)-non expiring (or at least not too quickly - maybe set able eg 6 months for a client)

Id be prepared to pay, but obviously not too much!

James who I work with has an account with you sendit or a similar service (I doubt he pays much, or anything) - but it seems the clients lose the content, or link or it expires, or is one time, or suchlike and typically that means me stepping in to send again PITA bigstyle

With a more costly service I would want to bill the client for hosting space or suclike and would need to be able to produce appropriate reports/promts where they pay me or I wipe their content>>??

Seems like backed up cloud choice could actually become a fairly central business desision.

I use box.net. Zip and upload from home or if I have big files (250-1000mb) I upload from a coleuges studio that has fibre broadband which is very fast. Password protect the folders and delete them once the client has them, I get an automatic email when somebody has downloaded the files.

FTP still works just fine, but have your clients use a browser instead of an FTP client. AFAIK, all browsers support FTP. THey just have to go to the URL you give, click a link, and maybe enter a password.

Logged

Peter"Photographic technique is a means to an end, never the end itself."View my web pageView my Facebook page

Actually I managed to pull up Filezilla - and then my mind went blank. I knew how it worked, but for the life of me I couldn't remember!

Quote

How do people here host and send large files.

-secure to individual clients, ideally without them having to 'join' the service-open to download (eg show reel)-non expiring (or at least not too quickly - maybe set able eg 6 months for a client)

Id be prepared to pay, but obviously not too much!

I mentioned Yousendit because you can send a 50MB file for free (15 seconds @60fps!). But I'm not a fan of it as a paid account.

For small files, less than 5 GB, take a look at Google Drive. It used to be Google Docs, they've just changed the name and added some new software, but it works great. It's free.

For greater data than that, take a look at Backblaze - $5per month unlimited data with no restriction on file size (they claim one person sent a single file 500 GB long) - Of all the companies I've seen they seem to be most honest, down to earth and dedicated. Also, they have a cool 'find my computer' feature that lets you track it if it gets stolen. For an additional fee they will send a DVD or USB drive to whomever you want. And they have a super cool blog.

For web projects and showreels, nothing beats Youtube. Vimeo is great, but Youtube has improved their quality and allows any size or duration (once you're in 'good standing'). It can be made private on a video or channel basis, and is the second most used search engine in the world after google. And if you have sufficient views, you start making money.

Having said all this, my favorite way to transfer files is via a hard disk/DVD/USB over Fedex. If you pack it well, nothing will go wrong. HDD manufacturers ship their drives all around the earth, through many sweaty palms. X-ray scanners and filthy warehouses - and still their drives have a failure rate of only 3% (Google estimate of their SATA drives - you did know that Google runs on cheap SATA drives, didn't you?).

For web projects and showreels, nothing beats Youtube. Vimeo is great, but Youtube has improved their quality and allows any size or duration (once you're in 'good standing'). It can be made private on a video or channel basis, and is the second most used search engine in the world after google. And if you have sufficient views, you start making money.

Vim and youtube are good, and SEO happy, but really I want a person to have the option of DL a H264 at 720 or 1080 exactly as I presented it.

Here the web is slow, so many things I DL and watch later - much nicer experience..

Time for your clients to mature...this is 2012...the Cloud will be the paradigm for the next decade. Good or bad.All the bike messengers are aging and FedEx works for everything analog...but for secure digital files we will need to discern the best method for delivery.

Box is great...for the big boys. Anything bigger than 300Mb needs a commercial account and you cannot get a single one... so for 500 per year you get a three person account...and that is the lowest level of entry.

Dropbox is less but a bit buggy...I can upload a 900MB file but struggle to get it delivered...to my own devices. Go figure.Still it may be the best way to deliver within a budget.

If you find a better alternative let us know...always looking for the best wave.

I use FileChute. I just drag the files to a well, it uploads them to my server and generates a link for me and emails it to the client. Super easy, and no outside service or monthly fees required. I use the bandwidth that I'm already paying for with my hosting account.

I've used the free version of cutesendit, it was easy to use and provided a confirmation that the recipient had downloaded the file. The free version allows files up to 100MB, while the paid versions allow up to 2GB.

Dropbox links don't expire. They are good until you remove the file. So you are only limited by the size of your account. I have a free account and 3.4GB of space, you can get much more for free by jumping through hoops like referring friends (hey if you want to help me use this link http://db.tt/bu1uAmHF for example.